Sentence-Frame Substitution Task

The sentence-frame substitution task is a frame-elicitation technique in which the researcher builds a small set of sentence frames — templates such as 'Can you get X from Y?' or 'Is X a kind of Y?' — and asks informants to judge, for each item and each frame, whether the completed sentence is true or sensible. Each item is slotted into every frame in turn, and the yes/no verdicts are tallied into an item-by-attribute matrix. That binary matrix is the raw material for componential and ethnoscience analysis, which uncovers the features that distinguish the items of a cultural domain.